Dying to Really Live

The title of this blog is the same as a book I edited, authored by Duane Smith (pictured above), a multiple near-death survivor. Duane got his title from the fact that he never really started living until after his first near-death experience (NDE). Before that momentous event, he had lived a typical life, growing up on a farm in Oregon, enlisting in the army in Germany where he met his wife, getting a degree in college, teaching for a while, going into the construction business, and accumulating wealth and toys like a boat and plane. To most people, he would be considered successful, a winner in the game of life. But he felt that something important was missing. When he died, he found it.

Before his near-death experience, Duane was an agnostic. During his other-worldly experience, he talked with God, who gave him the option to return to the material plane with a promise that he would be given a special book to guide him. He didn’t want to go back, but he realized his daughters needed him. When he was revived, he was devastated because the peace and beauty of heaven that he tasted contrasted sharply with the mundaneness of his life. But he found that his intuition was much more developed and guided him if he listened to it. One day, he decided to just drive with no particular goal or destination and follow his intuition. He ended up at a bookstore and had a remarkable experience. The lady at the counter asked, “Are you Duane Smith?” When he replied yes, she said, “I have the book your daughter ordered for you.” He was surprised because his daughter had never spoken to him about buying a book. She handed him a small book titled The Impersonal Life by Joseph Benner. Later, his daughter denied ever having ordered the book, and when he returned to the city, he couldn’t find the bookstore. I have a copy of this book. It's a record of the author’s Higher Self speaking to him about the spiritual life. This was the guide book that God promised Duane. Reading it helped Duane get out of his funk and get in touch with his own Higher Self because the Higher Self of Joseph Benner is the same Higher Self of Duane Smith as well as yours and mine. And that Higher Self spoke to Duane in his near-death experience.

In the beginning of the book, the Higher Self says, “You who have begun to realize I AM within, but have not yet learned to commune with Me, listen and learn now.” This book isn’t for everyone. Before his NDE, Duane wouldn’t have understood or been interested in The Impersonal Life. But after his visit to the spiritual realm and subsequent visits, he would spend hours just reading and meditating on one passage from the book.

The Impersonal Life is for those who have died or are dying. By this, I don’t mean those who have transitioned to the spiritual realm; they don’t have books there or, at least, physical books. Neither do I mean terminally ill people, although some may benefit from the book. What I mean are those who either have had a NDE or are dying to their human selves or egos. These are the ones who “have begun to realize I AM within, but have not yet learned to commune with” that Higher Self. Thus, fortunately, you don’t have to die and come back in order to get to this point of receptiveness to the Divine. You can reach it gradually by dying a little bit each day to your petty self. Saint Paul, who was a gnostic, knew this truth and practiced it. He said in 1 Corinthians 15.31, “I die daily.”

The Way taught at AwarenessNow.com is the same practice of dying to self that was used by the gnostics and the mystery schools before them as well as spiritual communities such as the Cathars and Bogomils after them. Organized religion persecuted these communities because if everyone realized his or her own divinity, there would be no need for priests and churches. Levi H. Dowling in The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, wrote “All people are alike the servants of our Father-God, are kings and priests…. The perfect age will come when every man will be a priest.” King is a gnostic code word for Christ. Jesus the Christ showed us The Way by sacrificing his self (ego) on the cross (the intersection of the horizontal material plane by raising the consciousness to the vertical spiritual plane). We reenact this crucifixion every time we, as priests and priestesses, perform the ritual of clearing and rewiring. We are not saved by Jesus’s physical death on a wooden cross or by a priest performing ritual sacraments upon us, but only by our own daily sacrifice and rituals, by dying to really live